Beschreibung:

Autograph Letter Signed, ("Unknown"), San Francisco, January 31, 1871, 8vo, 5 pp, with transmittal envelope, to Hiram Tubbs, Tubbs Cordage Company. An amusing if scandalous blackmail letter addressed to one of the leading citizens of early San Francisco. Hiram Tubbs was the founder of the Tubbs Cordage Company, an important employer in the city and supplier of the majority of manila rope for shipping out of the West Coast for many decades. In part, "Dear Sir, I write to ask your opinion as to whether a gentleman in good standing in this City would be likely to pay certain impecunious parties, any considerable sum of money, for the suppression of certain disreputable facts connected with the recent history of the aforesaid gentleman. Said facts may be stated as follows. On or about the 6th day of Janr'y present year, between 3 & 4 pm said gentleman cohabitated with a lady who is his own cousin. Went in the room No. 6 at the corner of Kearny & Market Sts, laid his spectacles on the table but did not wait to undress and then & there he did ..; Said gentleman's name sounds like Hiram & the ladys like AbbieNow as you can afford to pay so well for your pleasure, you can surely afford to donate something to the writer of this, he being at present in a bad state pecuniarily. He see an opening where the sum of five hundred dollars could be judiciously invested and hereby requests that you may fork over said sum. If you think you will do something you can put an advertisement in the personal column of the Chronicle on Friday or Saturday morning. If I see nothing there by that time or Sunday at the farthest I shall at once proceed to tell the world how Hiram Tubbs the respected slept with his own cousin Abbie Baldwin the School Teacher" Provenance: From the Collection of Edwin and Irma Grabhorn